To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION WITHOUT RESERVE at RM Sothebys' Amelia
Island event, 8 - 9 March 2019.
Estimate:
$500,000 - $650,000
- Offered from the Richard L. Burdick Collection
- The only example originally delivered without a
supercharger
- Original engine, chassis, and body
- A pure, unadorned vision of Gordon Buehrig's revered
design
Taking the job of general manager at Auburn in 1923, E.L. Cord
obtained an agreement that if sales improved sufficiently, he could
buy into the firm. He then spruced up the accumulated inventory of
unsold Auburns with bright paint jobs and nickel trim, and quickly
sold them all. By 1926, Cord was president of the company and held
a controlling interest. He readied new models and positioned Auburn
as a performance car at a low price, which further enhanced sales.
Among these was a low-priced eight-cylinder car, good value at its
$1,895 price tag in 1925, and even better at $1,395 two years
later.
Stutz was then making a name for itself on America's racing
circuits, and Auburn took up the challenge. Auburn's answer was a
handsome boat-tailed speedster. Introduced in the second series for
1928, the 8-115 speedster was said to have been styled by Alexis de
Sakhnoffsky, the Russian count who had emigrated to the U.S. in the
1920s to work at Auburn. The company embarked on a competition
foray, sending speedsters to Europe and South America, one of them
campaigned by Malcolm Campbell, the London distributor. In the
U.S., driver Wade Morton clocked 108.46 mph with a speedster on a
measured mile at Daytona Beach and covered 2,033 miles in 24 hours
for a record 84.7 mph average at Atlantic City. He also set a new
record at Pike's Peak. The results were satisfying, the publicity
wonderful.
The 1931 line was redesigned by Alan Leamy, a young designer Cord
had hired to work on his L-29 project. Leamy applied some of the
Cord hallmarks to the Auburn body, adapting the L-29's split grille
shell as a focal point of the design. The 1931 cars became the
best-selling Auburns ever. A new speedster was added to the line in
the autumn, with raked windshield and boat-tail, one of the
handsomest Auburns of all time.
For 1932, Cord and his Auburn team had another ace up their
sleeves, a V-12. Priced as low as $1,105, it represented incredible
value during hard times. The same year, a Columbia two-speed rear
axle became available, enabling a choice of drive ratios,
effectively six speeds ahead. For 1934, a six-cylinder car was
re-introduced, alongside a restyled eight. A diminished V-12 line
was kept alive in upscale Salon trim but using the old bodies. At
year's end, the twelve was history, but Auburn had one more arrow
in its quiver. The company pulled out all the stops for what would
be the final speedster.
The 1935 Auburn styling was the work of Gordon Buehrig, who had
designed the immortal Model J Duesenberg. Making the 1934 theme
more upright, yet more graceful, Buehrig also lowered the
speedster's tail, making it smoother and more aerodynamic. With the
V-12 gone, a more powerful eight was called for, so Auburn turned
to August Duesenberg to adapt the Model J's centrifugal concept to
the side-valve engine. With 6.5:1 compression, the supercharged
Model 851 developed 150 bhp at 4,000 rpm. On the Bonneville salt
flats, company driver Abner "Ab" Jenkins set 70 new unlimited and
American speed records for stock cars. Each new speedster was
delivered with a dashboard plaque certifying that the car had been
driven by Jenkins to more than 100 mph.
A TRULY UNIQUE AUBURN SPEEDSTER
This iconic Cigarette Cream Speedster has the distinction of being
the only known example built without a factory supercharger.
Actually built in Auburn, rather than at the Cord production
facility in Connersville as were most speedsters, it was reportedly
sent out early for the Boston automobile show, before the
superchargers were ready. The early engine number, 3777 (numbering
began at 3735), supports this explanation, as does the original
serial number, which lacks the "3" prefix of a supercharged
example. Further, surviving Auburn corporate records do note the
delivery of a single early example sans "blower."
Prior owners included the late Houston collector John O'Quinn, and
Mark Vantatenbow of Michigan; earlier, the car enjoyed a number of
owners on the East Coast and was included in the roster of
surviving authentic speedsters published in the Auburn Cord
Duesenberg Club Newsletter in 1996. The car remains in excellent
condition throughout, in its classic color scheme with brown
leather seating, exhibiting only modest signs of use. Without the
supercharged engine's side exhaust, the car's appearance is smooth
and pure, with the only interruption of the clean lines being
bumper-mounted fog lights.
Iconic and unique, this truly "one-off" Auburn represents a
singular opportunity.
To view this car and others currently consigned to this auction,
please visit the RM website at rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/am19.